U-M has 22 new alumni courtesy of a new training program — the U-M Facilities Professional Certificate Program — designed to advance the professional knowledge and skill sets of campus facility managers.
The FPCP was launched last year and is available to any U-M facility manager. With three levels of curriculum geared to the varying levels of expertise of facility managers, participants are trained in building technologies, health and safety, business operations, and construction and space management. The courses range from 17 hours for the basic level, up to 34 hours plus electives and a practicum project for the most advanced course.
“We have a wide range and divergence of facility managers across campus,” says Sarah Ely, training manager for Plant Academy, which is part of Facilities and Operations. “Through a tightly designed curriculum and cross-functional teaching team, the FPCP aims to make an already strong group of facility managers even better by enhancing their skills and knowledge.”
One of the most active groups in the first year of the program was the College of Engineering (CoE), which graduated five facility managers all at Level III, the most advanced course. John Keedy, CoE facilities director, says getting this first group enrolled in the FPCP is step one of a more formal program envisioned by CoE Dean David Munson Jr.
“We have 12 departments in the College of Engineering, each quite autonomous,” Keedy says. “Dean Munson’s idea is to define and establish a minimum level of qualifications and certification for every facility manager within CoE. The FPCP is the perfect start to seeing this become a reality.”
Ely credits Rich Robben, executive director of Plant Operations, as the “brainchild” of this training need through his recognition that new facility managers at U-M need immersion into the university’s systems through local resources. But the FPCP has received widespread support from multiple university departments, including the Office of the Provost, Business and Finance, and Facilities and Operations.
“For a first-year program, we had one of the most dynamic instructional groups for a training program that I have ever seen,” Ely says. “To be able to draw in experts from the various worlds they live in every day and impart that knowledge to our facility managers is priceless.”
Perhaps the biggest outcome of the program, beyond the advanced training facility managers received, was the four practicum projects from Level III course participants. They include an online resource guide for facility users, best practices reporting structure and process for facility managers, an online system for acquiring facility assets as an alternative to Property Disposition, and a study of the project management practices by the Medical School and Construction Services. Each of these will serve as campuswide resources for all facility managers via Web-based access.
“I had taken the facility management introduction course when I first came to U-M,” says Mary-Alice Wiland, facilities coordinator/manager for the School of Music, Theatre & Dance. “To go one level deeper is just really cool because the basis of knowledge given the range of things facility managers do at U-M is really broad.”
For more information on the FPCP, go to www.plantops.umich.edu/director/Academy/PDF/FPCP_application_letter.pdf.
